Pinterest introduced a suite of new advertising tools and user experiences at its "Pinterest Presents" event on Tuesday, aimed at strengthening its position as a performance marketing platform. The flagship offering, Visual Search Ads, allows brands to display sponsored products prominently in search results and Pin close-ups, enabling users to purchase directly from merchant sites (Modern Retail). Pinterest's AI-powered Performance+ suite is expanding to include manual A/B testing and product-prioritization features for seasonal moments (Modern Retail). CEO Bill Ready emphasized that Pinterest is now a performance platform where users arrive with "clear intent" but before purchase decisions are finalized.
For commerce practitioners, the timing is significant. Pinterest's user base has grown substantially, with 640 million monthly active users, more than half of whom are Gen Z (Modern Retail). Users conduct more than 80 billion searches monthly, with over half related to purchasing, and crucially, 96% of searches are unbranded (Modern Retail). Paid clicks to advertisers have grown 5X over the past three years (Modern Retail), and brands have increased Pinterest investment by 45% year-over-year according to agency data.
Pinterest is also expanding creator partnerships and connected TV capabilities. The platform began allowing creators to link Amazon storefronts while maintaining affiliate links, and over 80% of Pinners report trusting expert-informed content (Modern Retail). Pinterest's second-quarter sales rose 18% to reach $998.2 million, with global monthly active users jumping 11% year-over-year (Modern Retail).